Tie Your Shoes
Excuse me, do you work out? (This one really is about exercise)
Do you remember when we’d pick teams at school? The sporty kids, who also seemed to be the most attractive and popular, were invariably team captains, and they would take turns choosing team members from amongst classmates in order of perceived sportsing prowess.
I’m sure they’ve abolished this archaic practice in the age of Participation Medals, but if you were, like me, a member of the Picked Last club, you have a special VIP seat in this column today.
The humiliation of being Bad At Sports kept me away from exercise for much of my adult life. If a ball was coming my way, my instinct was to duck. I have a low pain threshold, my podiatrist says I have a circumductory gait, and I have an insanely intense startle response which makes me useless under pressure.
Despite these crippling setbacks, I have also been known to revel in bodily pleasures. Sex and dancing were my primary forms of exercise until somewhere in my late thirties it became clear that I would have to do significantly more of both in order to arrest the changes in fitness that came with ageing, and by that time I had several children and a job to go to so I needed something more expedient.
I joined a gym and hired Linda, a take-no-prisoners personal trainer from Hong Kong who pushed me right up to my limits and forbade me from weeping when I tumbled past them. Forbade me! “We do not cry here,” she admonished me on one particularly difficult Saturday morning. (Wonder if she knows about Down Bad?)
That was twenty years ago, and since then I’ve had an on again off again relationship with exercise. There was the year I took up running, and my groodle Bernie and I dropped heaps of weight and felt really virtuous until I developed plantar fasciitis and we both put that five kilos back on. Nowadays I go to the gym and play with the weights under the guidance of an exercise physiotherapist and also Instagram fitness influencers because I’m a sucker for a bite-sized bit of advice.
I heard somewhere recently that the hardest part about exercising is tying your runners. I spend my workdays dispelling the notion that motivation is this magical train that must arrive before we can do the hard thing.
The question is not “how do I get motivated to go to the gym?”.
It is “how do I tie my shoes?”
Since I will run alongside that goddamn magical train for months if not years before hopping onboard, I am mindful that I am moving into that dangerous territory - easy to say, hard to do. Nevertheless, here’s what has helped me tie my shoes.
When I felt a nudge, I followed it immediately. Last year I walked past a new gym near my home and had a little thought: “I should check it out since it’s so close.” Rather than waiting the few seconds it would take for my brain to talk me out of it, I walked in and got all the information I needed to sign up.
I engaged a trainer. Actually an exercise physiotherapist, as I was recovering from a broken leg and a bulging disc, which I acknowledge is a privilege but the principle is this: join with someone. If you can’t afford a trainer, find a buddy. If you don’t know anyone in real life, there are apps for that. Check out GymBuddy, Strava, Meetup, or search Facebook community groups.
Where your body is able, push yourself. Carry the heavy bag. Dance harder. Climb the stairs. Reach, stretch, bend. And especially if you, like me, sit on your arse in a chair all day, go outside and move around.
Engage in the childlike delight of exercising. One of the things I loved most about running before it hurt my feet was that I felt seven years old again. Reframe the gym as a giant playground full of cool equipment for adults. Listen to music that used to hype you up when you were 18 and heading out on a Saturday night.
Let other people inspire you but do not compare yourself to them. That, my friends, is the road to the couch, I promise you.
Recognise the improvement in your mood and frame of mind when you exercise. Maybe it’s a sense of accomplishment: “I am a person who works out! Huzzah!” Or perhaps it’s just a lift in energy, a glimmer of optimism, a night of better sleep, or a boost in confidence.
Check out the plethora of research correlating exercise with lower anxiety, improved mood, and general psychological well-being. I won’t bore you with it here but trust me, it’s easy to find.
Don’t let your brain get stuck on the cutest gym gear, the perfect runners, best earphones, blah blah blah. These are simply stalling tactics from the part of your head that wants to keep you home safe and warm on the couch because its perfectionistic reach far exceeds its grasp. No one cares what you’re wearing. No one.
Experiment and find something that suits you. Don’t like running? Try pilates. Yoga too zen? Join a boxing class and pretend you’re beating the hell out of your nemesis. Don’t like weights or exercising indoors? Walk somewhere hilly. Don’t want to exercise alone? Check out team sports. Keep your thinking flexible.
The other day I flexed my bicep and said to little nine-year-old Silas, “Hey, check out these guns!” He responded with “Wow, Grandma!” and I am choosing to believe his enthusiasm was genuine. And since I’ve shown a prepubescent boy that older women can grow impressive muscles, that gym membership has paid for itself.
Great tips! Relatable and realistic. Cheers